Jere R. Behrman

News

Teacher Training & Early Education in Ghana.

On Tuesday, October 10th PSC Research Associates Sharon Wolf and Jere R. Behrman accompanied by experts from New York University and Innovations for Poverty Action-Ghana. They presented findings from two rigorous studies on teacher training and efforts to improve early childhood education. Members of the audience included representatives from Ghana Education Services, Ministry of Education, the World Bank, and other key stakeholders. “What we found was that the in-service teacher training improved the number of play-based, child-friendly activities teachers used and improved the quality of teacher-child interactions,” said Dr. Sharon Wolf, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Human Development at the University of Pennsylvania and principal investigator for the study. “The program also reduced teacher burnout, as well as teacher turnover in the private sector,” Wolf added. Read the full article here.

Last month Jere R. Behrman and colleagues presented the Lancet report "Supporting early childhood development: form science to large-scale application." According to the study, an alarming 43% of children under the age of 5 living in low and middle income countries are at risk of inadequate development due to poverty and stunting. These negative effects extend to adulthood and the results are low economic income and the generation of social tensions. It is estimated that people affected by a bad start in life suffer a loss of about a quarter of the average annual income in adulthood, while countries can lose up to double their current expenditure on Gross Domestic Product in health and education. Important stakeholders including the Minister of Development and Social Includion, Fiorella Mollinelli, and the UNICEF representative for Peru, Maria Luisa Fornara attended the presentation. Photos of the event can be found at the UNICEF Peru Facebook Page.

In a forthcoming version of the article Park, Behrman and Choi discuss the assignment of students into single-sex vs. coeducational high schools in Seoul, South Korea which provides an interesting context to study causal effects of single-sex schools.